Why did I wait until I was 68 years old before hiking in the Italian Dolomites?

It is exactly the sort of place I love to hike! A paradise of stunning vistas. Long-distance trails that are clearly marked but not paved with concrete or tarmac. All the good stuff from modern civilization – hot coffee, cold beer, good food, hot showers and comfortable beds – with almost none of the downside of pollution, noise, crowds, traffic and concrete. Enough other hikers around that it does not seem scary or lonely, but without crowds. All you need to bring are a change of clothes and a few personal items. And a body capable of hiking 15 km a day with 1,000 m of elevation gain and loss, for days in a row.

It is almost unbelievable that in the centre of Europe you can hike all day without crossing a road or seeing a house or a car. You wake up in the morning in a “Rifugio”, a sort of combination café/bar/restaurant with some dormitory rooms attached. You help yourself to a buffet breakfast, walk out of the building, and you are immediately on a trail.

Follow the trail through woodland, across boulder fields, over passes and eventually another Rifugio comes into sight. Stop for a coffee and a slice of cake, then spend the afternoon admiring distant views, looking at where you started hiking that day, and trying to see where you will be spending the night. Continue hiking along streams, over another pass, along a ridge, down a dirt track, and, at last, after about five to eight hours of hiking, you will see the Rifugio where you will be spending the night.

You drop your pack and order a cold beer. The place may be busy with day hikers, so wait a while until things quiet down, then tell the staff who you are and the name of the company that made your reservation. They look at their ledger, welcome you, and remind you of a few basic rules. Leave your boots at the door. Hot showers are 3 euros. Breakfast is from 7 to 8:30. Dinner is at 7. Would you like the beef stew or an omelette? Then they show you to your room for the night, maybe a room with six bunk beds and a Dutch couple already sprawled out over a couple of them. You take a shower and swap your hiking clothes for a cleaner outfit. 

You head down to the bar, chat about your day with a few other hikers, and grab another beer or a glass of wine. Suddenly, it’s 7 pm, and time to find a place at your designated table. Water is poured, a salad arrives, followed by a large bowl of pasta and a delicious plate of stew. If you are lucky, a small dessert is served. You linger at the table for a while, but then you realize you are tired. You go to the bar and settle your tab, then wash and go to bed.

In the morning, you get up and repeat the process. If the weather is decent, this is as close to heaven as I can imagine!

My Itinerary

I hiked with F, a British hiking buddy. We booked all our accommodation and meals in advance through Alpenventures Unguided. We started the hike on Aug 18th 2025.

Day -2: Overnight flight to Venice

Day -1: Arrived in Venice. Hung out at the airport, had lunch in the café, caught the bus to Cortina. Spent the night at the Hotel Montana, right in the centre of town.

Day 0: Wandered round Cortina for while, met my hiking buddy F, then then got the bus to Dobbiaco, also called Toblach. Everywhere in this area has both an Italian and a German name.. For this bus, you can only buy tickets on the bus. Spent the night in Hotel Tschurtschenthaler, a friendly family-run hotel with an indoor swimming pool.

Day 1: 6.4 km, +894 m to Biella (aka Seekofel).

The adventure begins. After a great breakfast, we walked up to the bus station. The bus to Lago de Braies (also called Preger Wildsee) must be booked in advance online. If you do not have a booked seat, you will not be able to start your hike on time.

We actually managed to get on the bus before the one we had a ticket for, which was a great start. Lago de Braies is an incredibly scenic spot, with a fair number of tourists hiking around the lake or going out in rowing boats.

The hike begins with a 30-minute warm-up stroll along the lake’s edge. It was a delight to walk in mild sunny weather, in the shade of many trees, but at the end of the lake, the hike begins in earnest. The distance is short, but there is significant persistent elevation gain. Sometimes it is easy and shaded, but much of it is in full sun. There are a couple of short scrambles with guide ropes, but nothing too difficult. We were struggling with the heat and the sun, and we were both very happy to summit a pass and look down on Rifugio Biella. We had a beer and admired the spectacular view of the wilds around the rifugio. We waited for our turn to be signed in. The Refugio is one of the smaller and more basic ones, and the only one we came across with Turkish-style squat toilets. However, the beer was cold, the view was spectacular, the food was tasty, and the beds were comfortable. We were happy to call it a day.

Day 2: 13.8 km +619 -891 m to Lavarella

The day began with a fairly easy level hike to Refugio Sennes. This looked nicer than Biella. We hung out for a while and filled our water from their outdoor tap. We found a hotel serving pastries, so we stopped there for a treat, then continued. Eventually, we got views down into a steep valley, with Refugio Pederu at the bottom. The descent was long and steep, often on a concrete path. Pederu is accessible by road, so it is a large and busy place. We ignored it, had a picnic by a stream, and, just for fun, filled our water bottles from the stream using a filter. From there, it was a long, slow incline, then some walking on dirt roads, till we arrived at Lavarella. This was one of my favourite stops. It had the feel of an elegant country house hotel. We relaxed in their beer garden, knowing tomorrow would be a long, hard day, with rain forecast.

Day 3: 12.7km, +1053m -415m to Lagazuoi

Lagazuoi is an iconic destination, high in the mountains, only accessible by hiking or cable car. We figured that it would be a tough day, but the views would make it worthwhile. We set off in the mist, but it was not too unpleasant, and we began by making rapid progress over a level grassy area. Then we came to our first ascent, trudged over it, and then saw a very steep descent zigzagging down with huge logs supporting the path.

We made it down slowly and carefully, stopping by a lake for lunch. I ate a sandwich made with a completely black bun. At this stage, I was almost euphoric. We had done maybe over half the distance, maybe 1/3 of the ascent, the rain had stopped, and I felt fighting fit as we began the ascent.

The ascent seemed to go on forever. It began to rain, and we had no views. The immediate area was bleak, and there were few hikers around. We met a group of Italians who seemed to be lost, which disconcerted us.

Eventually, we found the wooden switchback that was clearly the route to Lagazuoi. Even then, the walk seemed interminable, and when we got to the top of the ski lift, it was unclear how to get into the Rifugio. Eventually, we checked in, and we were very glad to have booked a private room for the night. This gave us a chance to relax and spread out our wet gear. The public area of the Refugio was quite cramped and crowded. There were people playing cards at our assigned dining table, so I went to the adjacent table to check my guidebook. I got told off for being in the wrong place, which would confuse the wait staff, even though it was over an hour before dinner time.

Day 4:   7.9 km +354m – 780m to R. Scolattoli

In the morning, there was a bit of a view as we set off, back down the way we came. We did a brief detour into the famous military tunnels, but they were cramped and poorly labelled, so we retreated.

We walked all the way down to the Passo Falzarego, where the AV1 crosses a main road. After a couple of days without even seeing a tar-sealed road, this was a bit jarring. We crossed carefully and initially turned our noses up at the souvenir shop, but in the end, we could not resist a seat and a hot coffee.

At this stage, the GPS tracks we had been provided with differed from a clearly signposted route to Rifugio Averau, our next waypoint. We decided it was easiest to follow the marked path and the other hikers. We passed a pretty small lake, and then stopped at Averau. This had the vibe of a ski resort out of season. The weather was improving, so I enjoyed a nice cold Coke. From there, it was a short walk to our Rifugio for the night. Scolattoli is a large rifugio with spectacular views of the Cinque Tori. We arrived early and had plenty of time to explore them. This was especially enjoyable after all the day trippers had left, and we had the area almost to ourselves.

For the rest of the trip, the weather was mild and sunny. We had none of the afternoon thunderstorms we had been warned about. The views seemed even more impressive, but that might just be because now we could see further.

Day 5: 14.7km, +614m – 935m to Citta di Fiume

A long but glorious sunny day with many different and interesting stages. We walked past the Rifugio Cinque Torri and then began a steep descent down a narrow gully. After that, the path levelled off, and we approached Passo Giau. There was a vast number of cars parked along the road and lots of day trippers everywhere. Despite the crowds, we found a table outside and were served a coffee and tiramisu quite quickly.

We crossed the road and walked up to a pass, surrounded by families out for a picnic. We stopped to watch shepherds round up a flock of sheep. The views were spectacular. At one stage, we could see back to last night’s Rifugio, and at another, we could see Cortina in the distance. The hike ended with a long trudge along a fairly level dirt road. At first, there were great views of the hills above and the grassy valley below, but later we entered a wood.

We were glad to finally see the Rifugio. It is beautiful outside, with a large lawn that has views of a massive scree slope, but our dorm room was a bit cramped.

Day 6: 9.8km +633m – 428 to Rifugio Coldai

We were looking forward to staying at Coldai, a remote Rifugio not accessible by road. We walked across a large scree slope, following the path rather than the GPS route. No doubt the path changes after every rockfall. We entered a fairly populated, agricultural area with cheese shops and many day hikers.  We then began the trudge up to Coldai, accompanied by lots of locals, including small children who kept overtaking us. The path was not difficult, and the weather was pleasant, but the switchbacks seemed never-ending. We were glad to see the cable car that brings supplies up to the Rifugio.

We arrived at Coldai in time for a late lunch and a cold beer. The weather had clouded over, so the views were not as great as I hoped. I walked up the pass and explored the lake for a while. In the evening, the Rifugio seemed crowded and uncomfortable, but we ended up sharing a dinner table with an Italian family from Venice. Their daughters were 5 and 8, very cute, very well-behaved, and they spoke some English. Dad had worked in the USA, and we talked about what it was like to live on the island of Venice. Spoiler alert – they moved to the mainland!

This was one of the few times I talked to the locals, and it made my day. It was great to see families hiking the mountains together.

Day 7: 8.8km 352m -751 to R. Vazzoler

This should have been a very short day. It is listed as a 3-hr hike, but we knew by now that this means 5 hours, allowing for short breaks for photos and snacks. On the map, it looked somewhat intimidating, as the whole day is in the mountains.

In fact, it was incredibly beautiful and spectacular. F and I have been fortunate enough to hike in many great places, including Iceland, the Swiss and Slovenian Alps, and the Isle of Skye. Nevertheless, the views were mind-boggling. Every half hour, we thought we had found the best view of the trip so far, only to find something even better 30 minutes later.

We began by walking past a small lake, and then we were in the mountains with fantastic views of small villages to the north. We then walked in a valley and decided to take the detour up to R. Tissi for the view and the famous apple strudel. The strudel was great, but I think we may have missed the most spectacular viewpoint. As we descended, the weather became cloudy, and we worried we would be caught in a rain shower, but it never came. We crossed a couple of fields, walked through some woods, and came to the rifugio, nestled against a cliff in the woods.

This was one of my favourite rifugios. It had a Tyrolean feel to it with all the plants outside. It was quite spacious, and we had only four people in our dorm.

Day 8: 10,8 km, +961m – 1076m to Rifugio San Sebastiano

The hike began with a few zig zags down a dirt road, and then they took off into the woods.

Rifugios with paved roads are very different from those in the wilderness, as they attract regular tourist traffic as well as hikers. We were originally booked into Rifugio Passo Duran, but for some reason, we were moved into San Sebastiano, 100m down the road. The staff were a bit gruff and unwelcoming at the start, but then we offered to pay extra to have a room to ourselves, and they became much more agreeable. We ended up in a huge room with two bunk beds that was also used as a storage area for extra furniture. I went for a coffee at R. Passo Duran. The lounge area had a curious 60s vibe with white furniture.

Day 9 1.0 km, +532 m – 590 m to Malga di Pramper

This was our last full hiking day. Despite booking in November, we were unable to get suitable Rifugios to complete the last section of the Alta Via 1. We decided to cut the trip short at Malga di Pramper. The day was spectacular, with lots of great views, ending up by descending a wide valley through woods and eventually arriving at our Rifugio,

Malga di Pramper gets a very mixed review from me. It’s a cheese farm that has become an agrotourismo. It caters to Italian families wanting a holiday on a farm in the mountains. Alta Via hikers seem like an afterthought.

The grounds were spacious and had good views, and we enjoyed a beer, knowing this would be our last night on the trail. The dorm rooms were clean and modern, but there was no comfortable bar or lounge area to hang out in before dinner. There were three long tables in the dining room, but they put all of us on the one along the wall, nearest the kitchen door. Convenient for the staff, but awkward if you were in the middle seat on the wall side and wanted to get out.

Breakfast was a meagre affair of bread, jam and coffee. That seemed inexcusable when we were staying on a cheese farm with chickens wandering all over the place. Would a piece of their cheese and a hard-boiled egg have been too much trouble?

Day 10: Hiking off the trail to Forno di Zoldo  9km, mostly downhill

From Malga di Pramper, we found a path that offered shortcuts and let us avoid the dirt road for a while. We passed through an open-air art gallery and past a reservoir, eventually joining some small roads heading into town. The Posta hotel was very nice, and it was great to have our own room, with a balcony overlooking the street. We enjoyed hot showers without worrying about others lining up. We checked out the bars and restaurants, and got details of the bus that would take us back towards Venice

Day 11 and 12: We took the bus labelled Longarone, expecting it to terminate there, or at least to stop at an obvious train and railway station, but were surprised to find we had gone completely through the town and were being driven further south. We asked some other passengers, and it turned out we were heading to Belluno. This was the best possible news, as we knew we could easily get a train from there to Venice. F left me in Venice and flew home. I stayed at the Villa Costanza in Venice Mestre and took the train to Venice in the afternoon, experiencing “aqua alta” in the rain, with streets flooded in places by a combination of high tide and rain.

The next day, I looked around Venice Mestre and visited the M museum, dedicated to the good things that happened in Italy in the 1900s. This included rebuilding after the World Wars and the development of factories and sprawling new cities. It was an odd contrast to the wilds of the Dolomites.

CONCLUSIONS

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

I have made some small criticisms of various rifugios, but on the whole they were amazing. I loved the informality of them. You just give your name, and they assign you a bed. No credit card, no passport, just a quick check to see if you are on their register. Almost all of them were great places just to hang out and chat, with plenty of drinks and snacks available at fair prices, considering the remote locations. Everything was on the honour system. If you ordered coffee and cake at 3 pm, a beer at 6 pm and a glass of wine at 7 pm, no one would bug you to pay for any of it. Before going to bed, you would ask the bar staff for your bill and settle your debts so that in the morning you could just leave after breakfast.

Imagine going to a bank in North America with a business proposition. You have a beautiful piece of land with great views and want to build a bar/cafe/restaurant. If people want to sleep over, they can share a room with a bunch of strangers of mixed sexes. There will be no lock on any of the doors. If they want to charge their iPhones, they can leave them plugged into a random outlet in the lounge or a bathroom. And one more detail: the location is a three-hour walk from the nearest parking spot, with no public transport or Uber.

It would seem crazy, but in many parts of Europe, this type of hut-to-hut hiking is quite normal. I have done similar hut-to-hut hikes in Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Iceland. It is a shame that it is very rare in North America.

Packing: I used Oboz low-rise non-waterproof hiking boots, which suited me. I had lightweight slippers for inside the rifugios. I packed a pair of shorts, a swimsuit, two long pants, three pairs of underwear, three T-shirts, a couple of long-sleeve sweatshirts, a thin puffy jacket, waterproofs, a hat, and gloves.

Navigation: We had the official paper maps, the GPS tracks and app provided by Alpenventures, and printouts of their sketch maps for each day. All of them proved useful in their own ways.

Food and lodging: We had all our accommodation, breakfasts and dinners booked. A couple of times we ordered a packed lunch from the rifugio, but other times we just stopped for coffee and a cake at a rifugio or ate snacks and energy bars we brought with us.

We bought some bottled water, but we also used the taps outside some rifugios. Twice, we filtered water because it was quicker and more convenient than buying bottled water, but we could have managed without the filter.

Would I do anything differently?

I would try to book more private rooms. Dormitories are fine for a couple of nights, but after that, they get tedious and annoying. It is great to have some peace and quiet, privacy, and room to spread things out, or repack your backpack.

Using a tour company to make your bookings is convenient, but not essential. However, each rifugio is an independent business and has its own rules and reservation system. There are multiple options for which rifugios to stay at, and without local knowledge, it can be hard to decide what distances are reasonable for each day of hiking. There is an Alta Via 1 Facebook group that can provide some useful information.

Doing the AV1 forces you onto a particular route and into hiking specific distances. There is a lot more to explore in the area, which is probably as scenic as the AV1 but with even fewer hikers.

If I were to go again, I would consider doing the Alpenventures Unguided “Best of Dolomites” four- and five-day tours https://www.alpenventuresunguided.com/hht12-5w/

Overall, I would give Alpenventures a B+. Mostly, they did a good job, but they are not miracle workers.

If you have never done hut-to-hut hiking in Europe, they offer great webinars that explain the hut system. They also offered sound advice on packing, navigation, weather and fitness training. All the arrangements they made for us worked perfectly. They spoke perfect English and understood where people were coming from. For example, an Apple watch does not accurately track distances hiked on mountain trails, and the thunderstorms in the Dolomites form more slowly than those in the Rocky Mountains.

Booking in November for the following August, we could not get the ideal rifugios for the south section of the trail. We added an extra day and a detour to Malga di Pramper, but our penultimate day was planned 15.4 km with 1,322 m of ascent and 1,595 m of descent. This was rated as a 7-hr hike, but we estimated it would take us over 9 hours.

As we realized how hard the hiking is in the Dolomites (even level trails can be strewn with large boulders), we decided that we would find this stage too stressful. We asked Alpenventures if they could look for a cancellation at one of the intermediate rifugios. We thought this was worth trying, as people do drop out along the route due to injury, fatigue, or personal issues. They said that was not a service they provided. They did, however, give us good advice about leaving the AV1 at Malga di Pramper and heading to Forno de Zoldo.

Hiking at 68

I feel incredibly lucky that at 68, and five years into retirement. I can still do hikes like this. There were several days when I was really glad to get to a rifugio, have a seat and enjoy a cold beer, but there were no days when I arrived absolutely wiped out and unable to walk further. A lot of that comes down to good genetics and luck, but I do also try to walk frequently year-round in the City, and do some stretches and weight work a couple of times a week. I have become enthused by long-distance hut-to-hut hikes and have tried to do one every year, in part to give me a reason to do boring exercises the rest of the year. On this blog, you can find accounts of the UK Coast to Coast hike, the W hike in Patagonia, the Laugavegur trek in Iceland, and a traverse of the Tatra Mountains in Poland, as well as the Primitivo and San Sebastian Caminos in northern Spain.

Conclusion

The Italian Dolomites are a great place to hike. Go there while you are young and can handle multiple full-day wilderness hikes! The only real downside is that accommodation is hard to find and needs to be booked well in advance. (Wild camping is not allowed, but people do itdiscreetly.)

The Alta Via is a great through-hike, but there are many other ways you could plan a hut-to-hut hike in the Dolomites.

Happy trails!